Aelfrida Catharine Wetenhall Tillyard (5 October 1883 – 12 December 1959) was a British

author In legal discourse, an author is the creator of an original work that has been published, whether that work exists in written, graphic, visual, or recorded form. The act of creating such a work is referred to as authorship. Therefore, a sculpt ...

medium Medium may refer to: Aircraft *Medium bomber, a class of warplane * Tecma Medium, a French hang glider design Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''The Medium'' (1921 film), a German silent film * ''The Medium'' (1951 film), a film vers ...

, lecturer on

Comparative Religion Comparative religion is the branch of the study of religions with the systematic comparison of the doctrines and practices, themes and impacts (including human migration, migration) of the world's religions. In general the comparative study ...

and associated religious topics, spiritual advisor and self-styled mystic.

Early life

Tillyard was born in Cambridge as the second child and only daughter of local newspaper proprietor/editor Alfred Isaac Tillyard MA and his wife Catharine Sarah née Wetenhall, proponent of higher education for women. Her mother was one of the first women to take the Higher Local Examination after attending lectures for women in

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

. Tillyard had three brothers, one of whom predeceased her: Henry Julius Wetenhall Tillyard (1881–1968), classicist and expert in

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

musicology; Conrad Francis Wetenhall Tillyard (1885–1888); and Eustace Mandeville Wetenhall Tillyard (1889–1961), active in English literary studies and Master of

Jesus College, Cambridge Jesus College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Jesus College was established in 1496 on the site of the twelfth-century Benedictine nunnery of St Radegund's Priory, Cambridge, St ...

. Events surrounding the untimely death of Conrad Francis traumatised Tillyard so deeply that her personality became severely dysfunctional. Unable to tolerate formal schooling, she was educated privately by Cambridge lecturers until 1900, after which she spent a year in Switzerland and several months in Florence to perfect her already-fluent French and Latin. She subsequently taught languages at Cambridge schools, but she wanted to write. A breakdown in her physical and mental health ended the teaching career envisaged by her parents.

Later life

During her stormy adolescence, Tillyard underwent several mystico-religious experiences as a result of which she decided to dedicate her life to God's service. Bizarre manifestations of her dedication persuaded her parents that marriage was the only means of normalising her. On 19 January 1907 Tillyard reluctantly married Greco-American Constantine Cleanthes Graham (born Michaelides); they had two daughters, Elizabeth Mary Alethea in 1908 and Aelfrida Catharine Agatha in 1910. From 1907 until 1914 the Grahams lived in Russia, the United States, Germany and France as Constantine's Consular Service career dictated. After 1910 Tillyard and the children remained in Cambridge. During the war and thereafter Tillyard claimed to experience unwanted and sometimes unwelcome visits from dead persons known to or hitherto unknown by her; these included members of her family, former members of the

Society for Psychical Research The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) is a nonprofit organisation in the United Kingdom. Its stated purpose is to understand events and abilities commonly described as psychic or paranormal. It describes itself as the "first society to condu ...

Rupert Brooke Rupert Chawner Brooke (3 August 1887 – 23 April 1915The date of Brooke's death and burial under the Julian calendar that applied in Greece at the time was 10 April. The Julian calendar was 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar.) was an En ...

and

Roger Casement Roger David Casement (; 1 September 1864 – 3 August 1916), known as Sir Roger Casement, CMG, between 1911 and 1916, was a diplomat and Irish nationalist executed by the United Kingdom for treason during World War I. He worked for the Britis ...

. Already under strain because of Constantine's infidelities and Tillyard's moral and religious obsessions, the Grahams' marriage broke down irretrievably following her brief but influential foray into

esotericism Esotericism may refer to: * Eastern esotericism, a broad range of religious beliefs and practices originating from the Eastern world, characterized by esoteric, secretive, or occult elements * Western esotericism, a wide range of loosely related id ...

under the guidance of occultist

Aleister Crowley Aleister Crowley ( ; born Edward Alexander Crowley; 12 October 1875 – 1 December 1947) was an English occultist, ceremonial magician, poet, novelist, mountaineer, and painter. He founded the religion of Thelema, identifying himself as the pr ...

in 1913. Her compulsion to reveal marital discord and her own extramarital relationships in anthologies published in 1910, 1913 and 1916 also contributed to the failure of her marriage. The Grahams divorced in 1921. Constantine's consular career kept him abroad thereafter until his death in Berlin in 1934. Unlike her former husband, Tillyard never remarried but continued a series of intense friendships with younger men begun during her marriage, most notably with Ernest Altounyan, Hubert Henderson, Thomas Henn, John Layard, Juan Mascaro and Giovanni Papini. She also conducted one such friendship with a younger woman and one with the older French author Albert Erlande.

Work

In 1917 Tillyard came out as a mystic. Having already begun to record her mystico-spiritual experiences and their psychophysical manifestations in detailed diaries intended for posthumous publication, she also began to transcribe them in more or less fictionalised form in novels, homiletic books and moralistic short stories written between 1917 and 1958, some published, some not. In 1926 she wrote a biography of her aunt,

Agnes Elizabeth Slack Agnes Elizabeth Slack or Agnes Elizabeth Saunders (15 October 1858 – 16 January 1946) was a leading United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, English Temperance movement, Temperance advocate. Life Slack was born in Ripley, Derbyshire in 185 ...

who campaigned for temperance. She documented her aunt's travels to speak about temperance in Ireland, Canada, America, Scandinavia and South Africa. Following Alfred and Catharine Tillyard's respective deaths in 1929 and 1932, she decided to absolve herself of responsibility for her home and daughters in order to pursue her private and personal 'mystic way'. She was nevertheless dismayed when her daughters abandoned her, Alethea by becoming a nun and missionary, Agatha by suicide. In pursuit of her 'closer walk with God' Tillyard also became an Anglo-Catholic and (briefly) an extern oblate of St Mary's Abbey, West Malling, Kent. Tillyard wrote two science fiction novels articulating her conservative political views. ''Concrete: A Story of Two Hundred Years Hence'' (1930) is set in an anti-religious dystopia controlled by the

eugenics Eugenics is a set of largely discredited beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter the frequency of various human phenotypes by inhibiting the fer ...

movement. The novel includes a character called "Big Brother" who leads a "Ministry of Reason" and there is also a propaganda department called the "Ministry of Aesthetics". ''The Approaching Storm'' (1932) is another dystopia set in a Britain ruled by a

left-wing Left-wing politics describes the range of Ideology#Political ideologies, political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy either as a whole or of certain social ...

dictatorship A dictatorship is an autocratic form of government which is characterized by a leader, or a group of leaders, who hold governmental powers with few to no Limited government, limitations. Politics in a dictatorship are controlled by a dictator, ...

."The 1930s saw...a great many

anti-socialist Criticism of socialism is any critique of socialist economics and socialist models of organization and their feasibility, as well as the political and social implications of adopting such a system. Some critiques are not necessarily directed ...

anti-communist Anti-communism is political and ideological opposition to communist beliefs, groups, and individuals. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia, and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War, when th ...

novels like William le Petre's ''The Bolsheviks'', Morris Sutherland's ''The Second Storm'' and Aelfrida Tillyard's ''The Approaching Storm''. "

Andy Croft Andy Croft (born 1956) is an English writer, editor, poet and publisher based in North East England."About the Contributors", in Edward J. Carvalho (ed.), ''Acknowledged Legislator: Critical Essays on the Poetry of Martín Espada''. Rowman & ...

, ''Red letter days: British fiction in the 1930s'' London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1990. , 1990. (p. 221) In 1934 she moved to Oxford to live an anchoritic life in a small house attached to the Convent of St Thomas the Martyr but a serious physical and mental breakdown in 1936 forced her to move to the protective environment afforded by the Society of the Sacred Cross at Tymawr Convent near

Monmouth Monmouth ( or ; ) is a market town and community (Wales), community in Monmouthshire, Wales, situated on where the River Monnow joins the River Wye, from the Wales–England border. The population in the 2011 census was 10,508, rising from 8 ...

. She remained there as resident tertiary until asked to leave in 1946. From 1946 to 1953 she lived a semi-reclusive and prayerful but troubled life in two clergy houses in Cambridgeshire, effected a degree of rapprochement with her surviving daughter, and enjoyed a close relationship with her elder brother. In 1953 increasing bodily infirmity forced a move to St John's Home in Oxford where she died six acrimonious years later. She bequeathed her notebooks, published and unpublished works, and 75 volumes of diaries to

Girton College, Cambridge Girton College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was established in 1869 by Emily Davies and Barbara Bodichon as the first women's college at Cambridge. In 1948, it was granted full college status by the un ...

, of which her daughters were alumnae. The diaries were sealed until 2005.

Published works

* Le Livre des Jeux (Blackie & Co London) 1906 * To Malise (Heffer & Sons Cambridge) 1910 * Cambridge Poets 1900-1913 (Heffer & Sons Cambridge) 1913 * Bammie's Book (Heffer & Sons Cambridge) 1915 * The Garden and the Fire (Heffer & Sons Cambridge) 1916 * The Making of a Mystic (Heffer & Sons Cambridge) 1917 * Vision Triumphant (James Clarke & Co London) 1919 * Verses for Alethea (Heffer & Sons Cambridge) 1920 * A Little Road-Book for Mystics (Faith Press London) 1922. Second edition (SCM Press London) 1931 * Messages (Faith Press London) 1924 * Agnes E. Slack (Heffer & Sons Cambridge) 1926 * Spiritual Exercises (SPCK London) 1927 * The Young Milliner (Hutchinson & Co London) 1929 * The Way We Grow Up (Hutchinson & Co London) 1929 * Can I Be a Mystic? (Rider & Co London) 1930 * Concrete (Hutchinson & Co London) 1930 * Haste to the Wedding (Hutchinson & Co London) 1931 * The Approaching Storm (Hutchinson & Co London) 1932 * The Closer Walk with God (SPCK London) 1935 * The Way of Praise (SPCK London) 1937 * The Night Watches (Faith Press London) 1938 * Memory Pictures (The Watchword) 1953-1958 * The Fruits of Silence (British Publishing Co Gloucester) 1949 * The Silence of God (British Publishing Co Gloucester) 1950

References

External links